Robin did get pissy. And that wasn’t good for anybody.
“Oh, um,” I stammered. “Yeah. Let me change my clothes, and I’ll meet you out there.”
“Where are you staying now that you and Harry split? Just give me the address of your new place, and I’ll pick you up.”
My new place. I hadn’t told a single one of them about living in my car—or my new job, for that matter. Tonight would be as good a time as any. Maybe just the job. I couldn’t stand always being the one down on her luck.
“That’s all right. I might be a little late.”
We were a ragtag group, these ladies and me. Janet had been married to Ray, her high school sweetheart, since the day after graduation. They seemed real happy together still. Two kids, hard workers, the kind of family that you dream about having one day. They had a nice little brick house in a subdivision outside of town. They’d earned it together and that made it perfect.
Then there was Robin, a big biker chick, always in leather. She’d been married to Cal, then Chuck, and now she was married to Cal again. They’d fight and make up, fight and make up, but at the end of the day, they couldn’t live without each other. Iwouldn’t want to be around a bunch of fighting all the time, but not being able to live without someone? That seemed pretty nice to me.
Frank crossed my mind when I thought about my girls and their men, but I pushed him away just as fast. Hell, I hadn’t seen him in more than twenty years, kind of a long time to be pining away for some man who left you high and dry one day and probably hadn’t given you another thought. I wondered where he was now, what kind of horse he’d hitched his wagon to.
Probably somebody like my friend Cheyenne. She was tall and thin and blond. She’d never smoked like the rest of us, so she didn’t have those little lines starting to form around her lips. She had Kevin around her little finger, that was for sure. Married fifteen years, three kids, and he still looked at her like she was the Crown Jewels.
I sighed as I walked into the Beach Pub, already crowded and smelling of chicken wings and cigarettes. You couldn’t technically smoke in bars anymore, but technically doesn’t always pan out. Just like normal, Robin was in her leather jacket, Janet was in some sort of tight T-shirt she was too big to be wearing, and Cheyenne was in a crop top she was too old to be wearing—even though she looked damn good in it.
There was a big margarita waiting at my usual spot at the Beach Pub. The night was off to a good start. I could sip it real slow and not spend a penny.
“Your breakup special,” Robin said with a wink.
Cheyenne stood up and hugged me. “I’m so sorry, baby. Why didn’t you tell us? Why won’t you ever let us help you?”
Whywouldn’tI ever let them help me?
I waved her off. “Oh, Cheyenne, you know good as anyone I can take care of myself. Always have.”
“But maybe we want to take care of you sometimes, Di. Like you take care of all of us all the time.”
I did take care of them. Lord knows I did, but it wasn’t with heavy stuff like this. I was always helping Cheyenne memorize lines for whatever local play she’d decided to try out for. She was pretty, but the woman could not memorize a line to save her life. And Janet and Ray were always working, so I picked their kids up from after-school care or took them to basketball or something. And Robin had got this wild hair to sell jam at the farmers market and sometimes I’d help her on Saturdays when I wasn’t working.
But that’s what foster care had taught me. To take care of other people but never, ever depend on them to take care of you. Because they wouldn’t. In the end, no one would take care of you but you.
“Girl, where are you staying?” Janet chimed in.
This was the big moment. I had to tell them. Any one of my friends would take me in for a few days without a second thought. Of course they would. I almost said it, that I was staying in my car. But then Robin said, “Di, I respect the hell out of you. You never let this shit get you down. Not breakups, not job stuff. Nothing. You just keep rolling and you always land on your feet.”
She was right. I always landed on my feet. A cat with nine lives. Maybe more. I might have nothing—not one thing in allthis world—but I had these girls, and, what’s more, I had their respect. And that meant more to me than hot water and a clean towel in the bathroom or getting dressed in front of a mirror. It meant more to me than sleeping in a real bed with sheets and covers and a pillow.
I didn’t answer Janet. I just said, “I called and checked on Phillip today, and the nurse put him on the line. He talked a little to me.” I could feel myself beaming. If Phillip was okay, I was okay.
“You’re gonna get him out one day, girl,” Cheyenne said. Once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader.
“Oh yeah,” Janet said. “If anybody can do it, Di, it’s you.”
“Speaking of…” Cheyenne pulled a napkin out of her bag and handed it to me. There was a drawing on it.
“What’s this?” I took a sip of margarita.
“Kevin drew this up for you. He’s been saving all his scrap wood and metal and roofing for your beach shack. But then he got to thinking.… You know that hideous houseboat that washed up on the island across from the Cape Carolina docks that nobody’s done anything about?”
“Yeah,” I said, not quite following her.
“Well, he talked to the city, and they said if we could rehab it and you would pay the slip rent, you could keep it.”
I was still confused.
